


Shelter

by brainofck



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Cliche, Confessions, M/M, Offworld Sex, Sharing Body Heat, Stranded, Telepathy, proximity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-10
Updated: 2011-08-10
Packaged: 2017-10-22 12:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/237801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brainofck/pseuds/brainofck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stuck in an off-world ice storm, the team builds ice shelters.  Revelations ensue.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shelter

**Author's Note:**

> [Original story notes] This story is intended as a follow-on to [the Dark Muse Remix of Some Stones](http://archiveofourown.org/works/237794). Originally, it wasn't. But when I started thinking in terms of clichés, and how many I might be able to pack into one poor, innocent story, I felt an opportunity to bring in a telepathy angle was too good to miss.
> 
> I got a LOT of clichés into one story. *claps delightedly*
> 
> Also, a sneak into the .
> 
> Also, a wintry story for the season.
> 
> Whoo hoo!

"Well? Can you fix it?" Jack asked, trying not to be impatient.

It was only 15 below and dropping. With a freshening wind – steady at about 35 mph, gusting to 50, he guessed. No hurry. Or anything.

"I can't tell, sir, and even if I can, I'm not going to be able to beat the weather," Carter replied, voice muffled by the bulk of the DHD's housing. She backed out on all-fours and got to her feet.

"I think we need to find shelter from that and worry about the DHD later," she continued, pointing at the bank of black clouds rolling in from the northwest.

"I agree," Jack agreed. He clapped his hands together enthusiastically. Teal'c was regarding the snow with extreme distaste. Carter was trying to figure out if they would be able to manually dial the Gate after the storm passed. Daniel was really, really cold. It was amazing how utterly worthless telepathy could be some times.

"Okay!" he announced, trying to jolly them all through it. "Let's build some igloos!"

Daniel was skeptical. Teal'c didn't know what the hell he was talking about. Carter was actually distracted, at least momentarily.

"First thing. Ice saws, everyone. We're going to cut blocks about this big," he showed them with his hands, "and we're going to construct the walls around the hole we dig by cutting the blocks."

"Right," Daniel said, agreeing with something he had read in the SAS field guide or something. Jack glowered internally. SAS – pffft. "For a cold sink."

"Exactly," Jack said, for Teal'c's benefit. "The warm air rises, the cold air falls into the hole, and the living level of the ice shelter stays warmer. Here, you do it like this," he instructed. "And try not to work too hard. No sweating in subzero temperatures," he admonished. He got three distracted nods as they began working.

"Wouldn't it be more efficient just to dig a snow cave?" Carter asked. She was mentally calculating how much faster it would be just to dig under the snow, leave a roof, and use a snow block to close the opening behind them. Excavating the blocks for the igloos was time consuming and then the structure had to be built from the blocks.

 _Pffft_ , Jack thought.

"You clearly were not a 14-year-old boy in Minnesota in winter," Jack said. "We would have races to see who could finish the best igloo the fastest. Plus, it was a great way to impress girls, and after the igloo was built you could…" he trailed off at the unflattering images building in three different minds of his teen-aged self, leching on poor, innocent junior high schoolers. Plus Carter had a really violent reaction to the 'impress girls' phrasing, even though she knew he was really interested in Daniel. Wow. Did he think of Daniel as a girl? Because he was really built in the arms these days...

Jack yanked himself out of the swirl that was Carter's brain.

"Look! Just cut the damned blocks. Trust me, you'll be happier in an igloo than a snow cave."

He set to work next to Daniel, grumbling to himself.

Once there were enough blocks, Jack started the process of constructing the walls. With four people working, Jack had the two little ice buildings constructed in record time. He crawled out of the second one and dusted the snow off his knees.

"Very impressive," Daniel complimented him.

"Teamwork!" Jack demurred.

"OK! Teal'c and Carter, fill in the holes between the blocks with snow, but leave a few cracks open for ventilation. Daniel, I'll show you how to build the entrance tunnels. Then we go in and smooth out the inside surface, so the drips run down the dome when things start to warm up. You'll all be excited to know that the heat from the camp stoves will cause melt that will freeze in the cracks once the stoves go off, and in the morning the igloos will be so strong we can stand on them."

"Let us hope that we will not need the use of these shelters for more than the duration of this storm," Teal'c intoned, glaring at the dark sky and the lightly falling flakes.

Teal'c was annoyed at his breezy attitude. They had only been working on the project for three hours in the bitter cold, the light was fading, and there was still more work to be done before the structures were complete. He agreed with Carter that they should have dug ice caves.

Carter, on the other hand, was delighted with the whole process and couldn’t wait til they got a really good snow pack this winter on the grounds of the base so that she could practice – maybe make some improvements on the traditional design.

Jack just shook his head.

"We're going to dig an 'L' shape," he said to Daniel. Let's see if we can direct the openings toward each other."

"Good idea, angling them out of the wind," Daniel commented.

Finally, the buildings were complete to Jack's satisfaction.

"Remember the words of my sergeant in arctic survival training," he said, just because he knew it would provoke them. "'The best way to get warm in an igloo is to be really good friends with your igloo-mates.'" Jack chuckled to himself. "He said, 'What happens in the igloo, stays in the igloo.'"

"Right, sir," Carter said with a grin. "I think I'll share with Teal'c then."

Daniel rolled his eyes.

"Great. I was too slow again."

"What am I, chopped liver?" Jack objected to Carter's retreating back. "Camp stove only, Teal'c! And turn it off when you guys go to sleep!

Carter's hand waved back at him out of the entrance of their shelter.

"Carbon monoxide. We know." Then she shoved Teal'c's pack into the entrance opening, leaving Daniel wishing very hard that Jack had built a shelter for four instead of two shelters for two.

Of course, he knew that Daniel didn't want to be alone with him in a small, confined space. He had been neatly avoiding being alone with Jack at all for weeks. With the down time after the mission gone bad, then Carter's sprained wrist, then SG-11's urgent need for Daniel's expertise on PX9-255, SG-1 had been out of the rotation for nearly two months. General Hammond seemed more than happy to have them all on light duty for a while. All of this facilitated Daniel's successful avoidance of Jack.

Well, he wasn't avoiding Jack in the middle of a blizzard inside an igloo.

"Come on, Daniel, in you go! In an hour you will be enjoying temperatures of 30 degrees and no wind chill."

While Daniel arranged their flashlights for the best lighting and spread out the tent's tarp on the snow of the sleeping ledge, Jack stood in the cold sink and efficiently changed into dry clothes. Even working carefully, he knew they had all sweated too much. It wasn't thirty degrees in the tiny room yet, so the quick change was unpleasant, but once in dry clothes, he knew he would be warmer.

Daniel started the camp stove, pretending he wasn't carefully _not_ watching Jack change, and wondering if Jack still had the telepathy. It had been two months, after all.

"Your turn," Jack said, climbing up and trading places with Daniel. Now Daniel was shucking out of his damp clothes into dry ones as fast as possible, wondering if Jack was watching him. He couldn't decide if he wanted Jack to be watching him or not.

Oh, fercryinoutloud. He did not need the insight into every person's insecurities. He had yet to find any useful purpose for this stupid telepathy.

Jack rolled out their sleeping bag pads on either side of the camp stove, then their bags.

Daniel climbed back up and sat opposite him across the camp stove, he took the turkey breast MRE that Jack had laid out for him, activating the heating pouch. Jack opted for beef stew.

They ate in silence. Daniel wasn't even thinking about much right then except that the turkey MRE was mediocre, but at least edible. Then they were all done and sitting in an igloo with nothing to do.

"Cold weather survival is pretty boring," Jack commented. Daniel snorted in agreement.

"I should have brought books," he replied. Jack found that they were both feeling a sweet nostalgia at the thought of the naïve Dr. Daniel Jackson of the original Abydos mission.

"Best thing to do in an igloo is make time," Jack opined. He felt Daniel's stomach do a back flip. Daniel glared at him.

"Did you just suggest that you built this thing to get fresh with me? Not to mention implying that I'm a 14-year-old girl?" he demanded, a smile under the glare. Layers and layers to this guy – but Jack knew that already.

"Yes, Daniel. My grand seduction! Now, to share body heat!"

"They're mummy bags, Jack. The whole point is to _not_ share body heat," he groused as he turned the stove off again and moved it down into the trench with their packs. Jack estimated they had achieved a toasty 28 or 29 degrees. He checked their ventilation holes, then squirmed into his sleeping bag.

Once in his sleeping bag, Daniel almost immediately relaxed. He felt safe. He was tired from their day's work, sleepy and surprisingly warm.

Time for Jack to put his plan into action.

"I was hoping we could talk," Jack said.

Daniel sighed.

"I told you, there's nothing to talk about," he said. Jack had to respect him for not trying to play dumb.

"Which is why you've been avoiding me for two months," Jack replied.

"That's not true," Daniel denied.

Jack didn't respond to that. They were quiet for a few minutes.

"You know what's weird about telepathy?" Jack asked him. Daniel began mentally cursing.

"No, what?" he asked acidly.

"It's pretty much worthless. Though I'm reserving my final judgment until I get to test it in a battlefield scenario. Or maybe the next time I have to deal with the NID."

Daniel was confused. He couldn't figure out exactly where Jack was going with this. He lay quietly and let Jack keep talking.

"But one thing I haven't tried is this…" Jack said.

He concentrated on Daniel and opened up. He wanted to show him everything about how Daniel made him feel. How much he loved him and respected him. How in debt he felt to him. How frustrating he found him. How he was not disgusted or angry about Daniel's sexual interest in him.

How deeply Jack had realized he was in love with him.

Daniel gasped. His whole body physically convulsed. Panicking, thinking he was somehow hurting his friend, Jack tried to turn the whole thing off again. He concentrated on holding all of it back inside his own head again, and apparently he succeed in that.

Daniel rolled over in his sleeping bag, bringing himself, wrapped tight in his mummy bag, chest-to-chest with Jack.

In the dim light of the flashlights, he searched Jack's face.

"That's how you feel?" he asked. "About me?" He sounded breathlessly startled. He gave one of his funny little come-and-go smiles. Jack returned it with a bold one of his own.

It seemed like Daniel wasn't going to get past the staring. So Jack closed the distance between them and kissed him.

They woke up the next morning spooned together. Jack sternly told little Jack to just relax. Nothing was going to happen while they were off world. Besides, the reason he woke up was Harriman's voice on his radio.

"O'Neill here, Sergeant. We've got a little problem with the DHD, and we've been pinned down by a major weather event for the past twelve hours. I'll let Major Carter fill you in on what she needs, but I think we're going to be stuck here until this storm dies down."

Daniel, pretending to be still asleep, was thinking very dirty thoughts about being pinned down. Jack let the switch go on his radio.

"Quit that, Daniel, or my morning wood's never gonna go down so I can take a piss."

Daniel just snickered unsympathetically, despite the fact that he was in exactly the same state.

Carter took over the communication with the SGC. Jack sat up, reluctantly peeling out of his warm sleeping bag and starting up the camp stove again to one side to warm up his boots.

Daniel rolled over so that he could watch him from inside his bag. He even left the hood on.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Over to check on Teal'c and Carter. Plus, I want to look at the weather. I'll be back for breakfast in a few minutes."

Daniel's ideas about what they could do with a couple more hours alone in the igloo were not helping. He shoved his feet into his boots, struggled back into his coat and dove out the tunnel.

The blizzard was still in full blow outside. He ducked directly into the other ice shelter. He met two glares as he emerged from the short tunnel.

"O'Neill, you should not have hidden your continued affliction."

"And that thing last night was a little intense. Sir." Carter said pointedly.

Despite their protests, Jack could hear what was going on inside their heads. Teal'c and Carter. Huh? How had he missed that? Stupid worthless telepathy.

"Sorry about all that. So. You guys seem OK over here. I'm just going to…" he jerked his thumb back over his shoulder. "Remember, what happens in the igloo, stays in the igloo," he called back as he made a hasty retreat. Carter followed him and shoved the pack firmly in place behind him.

Back in his own igloo, he found that Daniel had zipped their mummy bags together.

"There's no way that's going to work," Jack ventured uncertainly.

Daniel's clothes were carefully folded on the corner of the tarp.

So Daniel was just wearing a sleeping bag and a smile?

Jack hoped the storm went on for a long time.


End file.
